Happy World Poetry Day!

Understanding the tone in "Mother to Son"

These videos may help you think more deeply about "Mother to Son."

Please leave your new Comment here. The prompts are posted 2 Posts back.

Mother to Son

Please rethink your response to Langston Hughe's poem "Mother to Son." I could not find a single response which recognizes the historical context. This is not just any mother. Oh, no. This mother symbolizes other mothers, mothers who lived the hell of slavery, of post Civil War reconstruction (irony there). Mothers from the Deep South who witnessed laws which encouraged violence and racism against all African American people. Mothers who lived in fear for their families because of the hate crimes that were tolerated in states like Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas. School buses carried white children to schools but "blew by" African American children walking miles and miles to attend schools which began much later because they had to pick cotton first. Lynchings, burnings, tar and feathering, beatings were realities. Please rethink your response. Hughes narrator is not just any Mother. Go beyond the text of the poem to make connections to history and the United States.

Mother to Son

Well, son, I'll tell you:
Life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
It's had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor --
Bare.
But all the time
I'se been a-climbin' on,
And reachin' landin's,
And turnin' corners,
And sometimes goin' in the dark
Where there ain't been no light.
So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
'Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

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Read "Mother to Son" and answer ONE the following questions.

1. Identify the metaphor Langston Hughes writes about. Explain what you believe its figurative meaning to be. Use text support.

2. Who (inference) is the speaker of the poem? What is the speaker's message. Explain. Include 1 text support.

Listen to the poem. You may have to open the link above.

Dream Variations

To fling my arms wide
In some place of the sun,
To whirl and to dance
Till the white day is done.
Then rest at cool evening
Beneath a tall tree
While night comes on gently,
Dark like me-
That is my dream!

To fling my arms wide
In the face of the sun,
Dance! Whirl! Whirl!
Till the quick day is done.
Rest at pale evening...
A tall, slim tree...
Night coming tenderly
Black like me.

Langston Hughes

L.H. uses figurative language (simile, personification) to express ideas which otherwise would be difficult to communicate. What might he be expressing? Give 2 examples

One of the Greats! Dylan Thomas

Poetry is a deal of joy and pain and wonder, with a dash of the dictionary. ~Kahlil Gibran

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO
THAT GOOD NIGHT

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rage at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

-Dylan Thomas

As you read this poem, notice that, while the poet seems to be writing about something concrete, he may also be dealing with some deeper theme: love, death, truth, beauty, justice etc.

Write a paragraph to your blogging group. State what you believe the "big idea" might be in this poem. Support your thinking with text references. Include your thoughts about the speaker's ideas in this poem.

Maya Angelou's "Still I Rise"

Still I Rise
by Maya Angelou
You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise. Does my sassiness upset you? Why are you beset with gloom? 'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells Pumping in my living room. Just like moons and like suns, With the certainty of tides, Just like hopes springing high, Still I'll rise. Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes? Shoulders falling down like teardrops, Weakened by my soulful cries? Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard 'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin' in my own backyard. You may shoot me with your words, You may cut me with your eyes, You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise. Does my sexiness upset you? Does it come as a surprise That I dance like I've got diamonds At the meeting of my thighs? Out of the huts of history's shame I rise Up from a past that's rooted in pain I rise I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. Leaving behind nights of terror and fear I rise Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear I rise Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, I am the dream and the hope of the slave. I rise I rise I rise.

Awakening

Awakening: A Sestina

During an early morning dream:
I lost my way in a sea
of late night parties and rowdy revelers
who became desirable friends of the port
I blissfully explored and at times in a swing,
flying high above the buildings.

I searched for former friends within the buildings
which led me down steep hills to the sea.
I was alive, aloft, in the swing.
This woman who laughed and lived in her dream
and lived and loved on the streets by this Port
while she danced and skated among the revelers.

Down by the deck I asked the four revelers
where I might find a once visited favorite building
which harbored memories from a past visit to the port.
A handsome youth looked out on the sea
smiled a broad goofy grin and in my dream
he gestured uphill where I spied the swing.

Beyond the dozens of pubs and near the blue canvas swing
I rushed around corners and past late night revelers
to search for the answers I sought while deep in this dream.
I crossed one way streets and canvassed vacant buildings
Built long ago in a city by the sea
I came to understand I needed the port.

Surprising though it may be to some, along the port
Nothing could be more real and right than a girl in a swing
Looking down and around and those who seek will see the sea
Because it’s here that the living become revelers
And discover deep within their sleep that buildings
where food and drink are built exist in our dreams

I name my purpose by the port
a place for revelers’ dreams
of buildings and waking in this living sea.

-Jacquie Leighton 2009

Six Words

Six Words
by Lloyd Schwartz
yes no maybe sometimes always never Never? Yes. Always? No. Sometimes? Maybe— maybe never sometimes. Yes— no always: always maybe. No— never yes. Sometimes, sometimes (always) yes. Maybe never . . . No, no— sometimes. Never. Always? Maybe. Yes— yes no maybe sometimes always never.

Iambic Pentameter?

Sonnet 18

Listen to the Sonnet. Check the link at the top of the page for a copy of the text and a rewording. Once you have an idea about Shakespeare's Sonnet is about...write a initial Comment explaining the situation of the Sonnet...what you think. Support with text evidence.

Tomorrow you can reply to your blogging group on what they thought Shakespeare's 18th Sonnet was about.